


I've Been Talking To The Stars About You

by richietoaster



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Friends to Lovers, International Fanworks Day 2021, Kissing, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV switch, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, gen z humor, the losers try to set them up on a blind date.. it doesnt go as planned lol, they all roast each other lol, zillenial humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29450397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richietoaster/pseuds/richietoaster
Summary: Eddie looks over, finally making eye contact with Richie, trying to read his expression. “What are your thoughts?”Richie’s eyes flicker down to Eddie’s mouth, and immediately back up to meet his gaze, trying to be as discreet and nonchalant as he can about his actions, but Eddie caught it.“Is that what you’re thinking about?” Eddie whispers.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59
Collections: Writers Revolution Be My Valentine 2021





	I've Been Talking To The Stars About You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [korereapers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/korereapers/gifts).



> NYEEEEEEEEE OK THIS HAS BEEN SOMETHING I'VE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH SINCE EARLY JANUARY.  
> i had the plotline and how i wanted it to end but i just.. i just couldnt make it there lol.
> 
> ANYWAY IT IS HERE. A couple hours late, but it is here. God I miss reddie.
> 
> This is a fic for Kore, we participated in our writing server's Valentine's Day fic exchange and decided to write about the sam4 topic but do our own take on it. I have not read Kore's fic yet, since it was posted before I could get mine up, so the second this is posted, that's next on my list. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this, particularly Kore and the server, because honestly, it probably wouldn't have gotten done without them. Love you guys <3

_“Heey, lookie here, you guys!”_

Richie turns around, slamming his locker shut. Mike, Stan, and Beverly are walking towards him.

“What, ditch the hawaiian shirts at the last minute?” Mike pulls at Richie’s band t-shirt.

“Yeah. Winter break has changed me.” Richie shrugs. “Figured I might as well try to look hot or something for the rest of the year.”

 _“Or something,”_ Bev answers. Richie flicks her nose.

“2000s pop punk look instead of wanna-be stand up comedian? A glow up, sure, but hot? Unlikely,” Stan muses.

“Listen, Staniel,” Richie swings an arm over his shoulder, “I’m in the middle of a crisis. Maybe a change will catch the eyes of the one and only Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“Ha!” Stan pushes Richie away from him. “Fat chance, trashmouth. You’ve been trying to snag a date with him for like, what? Three or four years? You’re not even properly friends.”

And, he’s not _wrong._ Richie has been trying to score a date with Eddie since they sat next to each other in Chemistry class since Freshman year. 

“You know, Rich, you _might_ have a better chance if you attempted to talk to him.” Mike supplies.

“What is this shit? Pick on Richie’s nonexistent love-life day?”

Bev is suddenly smacking Richie across the chest, interrupting the conversation of the three, he forgives her when he sees what she’s gaping at. And.. and it’s _Eddie._ His skin is glowing, he has whiter teeth, and if they’re all being honest, it looks like he even had a mini growth spurt over the last two weeks. His hair even grew out a little bit, some stray curls dangling over his face. The way Eddie’s walking down the hallway with just a tad more confidence than he had before winter break, it’s almost as if he knows he’s gotten hotter. Richie hates him. (He doesn’t.)

“Seems like winter break didn’t just change Richie,” Bev comments, smirking.

Mike snorts, “Right? And we thought he couldn’t get whipped anymore than he is already.” He earns a playful push to his chest from Richie.

“What was that for?”

“For being right,” Stan says. “Jesus, Rich. Could you make your staring any more fucking obvious?”

Bev rolls her eyes, all to knowing. “He could.”

“He _is._ He’s trying to be obvious and it’s not cute. _That’s not cute, Richie.”_ Mike laughs and waves a hand in front of Richie’s face, maybe a little too over dramatic, but it’s what makes it even funnier. It’s what also seems to attract Eddie’s attention, who flashes a grin and a shy wave in their direction, just as the warning bell rings.

“Was that for me? What the fuck?” Richie blinks. “I’m dreaming. _I’m dreaming.”_

“Come on,” Bev grabs his arm, “You’re going to be late for class. Don’t piss Ms. Porter off the first day back.” She directs her attention over to Mike and Stan. “We’ll see you in gym if we don’t go for a smoke break.”

“Sounds good,” the two say in unison. The final first bell goes off and Bev starts pushing Richie down the hall. “Can’t your gangly ass giraffe legs go any faster?” Richie lets out a loud laugh.

* * *

 _“_ They were talking about me,” Eddie says. He’s huddled in a loose circle with Ben and Bill, stretching and rolling his shoulders before gym class starts. 

“What? What do you mean they were _talking_ about you?” Ben leans against the bleachers, taking a long sip from his bottle of water.

“Like, gossiping?” Bill asks, “B-Because I don’t think they’re the t-type of people to really do that.”

“No.. not gossiping. I don’t know. Like.. they clearly noticed that my appearance is a little different,” Eddie shrugs. He expected people to notice, but he didn’t expect to catch Richie Tozier’s eye. He was _hoping_ his aunt giving him a makeover, at the very hilarious expense of his mother, may he add, would help, and apparently it did. “Richie was staring.. Staring at _me._ His friends were making fun of him for being whipped. None of them said my name, at least not that I heard, but I just know.”

“So, Richie likes you then?” Ben asks, a hopeful, yet mischievous glint in his eyes

“Doubt that.”

Bill groans. “He was staring at you, a-and you have enough c-context to know that he was being a simp, and you _doubt_ he likes you? M-Make it make sense, Eddie.”

“I don’t know- he doesn’t really know me that well, honestly. We’re not friends..”

“But you could be. You’re both at least friendly acquaintances to each other. In order to make friends you have to take that step. You’re not a shy person,” Ben tells him. 

“Yeah,” Bill agrees, “Also y-you can’t say he can’t have a crush on you just b-because you don’t know each other w-well. You’ve literally been crushing on him s-since you moved here, and saw him on your first day in the eighth grade.”

“Okay, first of all don’t at™ me.”

Bill ignores him. “Why don’t you just go talk to him?”

“And embarrass myself? Yeah fucking right.” Eddie eyes Richie and Beverly, who are sitting on the other side of the field, under another set of bleachers. “I’ll make a fool of myself.”

 _“Please,”_ Ben sighs. “You won’t make a fool of yourself, I promise. Can you please just go talk to him? Maybe you guys will even hit it off.”

Eddie seems to think it over for a few seconds, and then eventually gives in.“Fine. But if it goes horrible, someone needs to get me drunk tonight,” and then he’s off, walking towards the pair.

“Holy shit, I didn’t think he would actually do it.”

“Ben, you r-realize even if they do hit it off, they’re g-gonna be dumb about it, right? We need to get these pining idiots together already.”

“You’re right..” Ben says, and he can hear the faint voices of Eddie, Richie, and Beverly. “Shit, what are they saying?” 

The two of them fast-walk across the way to get close enough, and are just in range to hear Richie say in a nervous-yet-excited tone, _“Uh, yeah! Sure!,”_ and watches him as he takes the cigarette from his mouth, throwing it to the ground to stomp it out with his shoe. It elicits a yell from Beverly, _“I could’ve finished that!”_

After Richie and Eddie begin jogging around the track and out of earshot, Bev walks up to Ben and Bill.

“We need to talk,” she’s eyeing their friends. “Mike and Stan are around somewhere. They need to be involved too.”

“Is this operation _get-reddie-together-finally?_ Because I’m in.” 

“Of course it is. I don’t even know we haven’t done this a long time ago.. Oh, and by the way, I’m Bev.” 

“I know. I-I mean, I’ve seen you around. I’m Ben, this is our other friend Bill.”

“Cool, cool. It’s nice to meet you both. Let’s go find the other two so I can introduce you to them and we can make a plan. Sound good?”

“P-Perfect,” Bill answers.

\-----

“Hey, thanks for keeping me company while I do my laps. My friends didn’t want to jog with me today.” Eddie looks up at Richie, a closed-mouth smile playing on his lips.

“Yeah, it’s no problem. I get it, sometimes my friends don’t wanna do certain things with me either. I’m more than happy to help, though.” Richie returns the smile. “How long have you been on the track team? I used to be in soccer but my adhd kicked in and I could never focus on the field, so my mom pulled me. I think she was more sad about it than I was.”

Eddie laughs, and it’s like a floodgate opened within him. “That’s ironic, because my mom hates that I’m on a sports team. She hates me doing anything, really. But track is something I’ve been passionate about since I got to Derry, so I just ignore her and keep doing it, even when she complains.”

“It sounds like she sucks, sorry about that.” Richie sympathizes. “I know it probably doesn’t really mean much, but I think it’s really cool that you stand up for what your hobbies and interests are.”

“Actually, it does. It does mean a lot- thank you.” 

Their hands brush for a moment, and they both nearly jump apart. Neither of them notice, too focused on making sure they keep themselves in check. 

Richie decides he’s feeling brave. “I don’t know why it’s taken so long for either of us to talk to each other.” _Not that brave._ “ Like, I know we have similar interests because we’re in the same electives. And-And-” he sees their friends walking together, chatting away, “our friend group clearly fits in perfectly together.”

“So like, I’m that generic astrology bitch you hear about in memes, but I’m serious when I tell you: some things, friendships included, take time, you know?” Eddie stops for a moment, steering the both of them over to the nearest fence, so he can lean on it to catch his breath.

“Like, stars aligning and fate kinda shit?”

Eddie locks his eyes with Richie’s, “Exactly.. I could teach you about it, if you’d like.”

“Something your friends aren’t interested in learning about?” Richie jokes, eyes lighting up when Eddie laughs at the joke in remark to their earlier conversation.

“I guess you could say that I’m..” Eddie takes a very small step forward, that could also go as something unnoticed. “I’m interested in a lot of things, different from Ben and Bill.”

Richie blinks in surprise, initially taking that as a flirty comment, but quickly shrugging it off, because why would Eddie make that kind of move?

* * *

Over the next couple weeks, their group begins to slowly blend. It was a slow process at first- they didn’t all sit next to one another right away. Sometimes it would just be Eddie and Richie, Eddie always giving his friends the excuse that Richie was helping him with a class or something, and Richie just kinda going along with it. 

Today’s not one of those days. Richie and Eddie are both late, but the others already know they aren’t with each other. 

“Richie’ll be here any second. He was held back in English because our teacher wanted to talk to him about a paper we had to write,” Mike explains.

“Did he fail it or not write it or something?” Bill asks. And, of course any normal person would think this.

“Ha!” Bev exclaims. “Richie _not_ doing his work? Very, very unlikely. You’d think so, though, right? He acts like he never does his work and doesn’t have any school smarts but, but he has everyone fooled. The dude is probably gonna be valedictorian, and no, I’m not joking.”

Ben questions in awe, “Valedictorian? That’s amazing.” 

Stan hums. “Yeah, I’m jealous sometimes, honestly. You should see the way he can work out math problems so quickly. You’ll have to test him, he won’t tell you, but he loves that shit.”

“Right, s-so he can work out math problems with like, level 10 d-difficulty, but not his pining problem?” 

“Hey, don’t give Eddie credit, they’re both stupid and pining,” Mike says, “Speaking of which, you think the plan will work?”

“What plan?”

The five of them turn around and see Eddie and Richie behind them, watching them with wide eyes, coming around to sit down at the table. 

“I thought you had to stay after class, Rich?” Bev questions.

“Oh, yeah, I did. I saw Eddie in the hallway walking here, so we walked together.”

“So, what plan?” Eddie repeats.

“Uh.. we were just trying to find a day where we can all hang out together,” Stan says, concealing his lie well. 

That is, until Bill spoke: “Yeah, you know, since _Valentine’s Day_ is coming up soon and all.”

Stan gave him the look, one that says, _‘shut your mouth I’ll kill you’,_ very similar to _Michael’s_ from _The Office,_ when _Toby_ is asked in the exit interview what he would do to change the company. He’s quick to add on to make it not seem suspicious, “Because Patty and I have some plans and what not.”

Richie shrugs.“Right. Well, you don’t have to worry about me being busy for Valentine’s Day or anything. I’m a single pringle. Pretty sure everyone here except for Stan is, so if he’s got dates with his girl, let him, we’ll just work around it.” 

“I’m s-still s-stuck on the fact that Richie just ended all of us here except for Stan. Like, how do you know the rest of us are single?” Bill asks, twirling his french fry in ketchup. 

“Okay, fine, Bill. Are you in a relationship?”

“No.”

“Then I wasn’t wrong. Next.”

Eddie chuckles. “Being single isn’t a bad thing, Bill. Just means you’re waiting for the right person.”

“What is this? _Just-girly-things_ tumblr?” Bill scoffs.

Eddie thins his lips and then says, “You know what, get fucked Bill. I was trying to be _nice._ This is why you’re single.” This sends the group into a fit of laughter, Bev hitting the table with her fist.

Mike puffs his chest and says in the most announcer-like voice he can, _“Finish him!,”_ and it doubles them all over even more. 

_“Anyway, Children,”_ Bev finally interrupts, clearing her throat to gain composure, “we’ll all establish a day whenever Stan knows his schedule, right, Stan?”

“Yep, I’ll ask Patty tonight to confirm and stuff and then we should be good.”

Richie breaks the short silence after Stan spoke, by reaching in his bag to grab his pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and shoves it into his pocket. “Anybody want my fries? I’m gonna head out for a smoke.”

“We just sat down, like five minutes ago, Rich.”

“Yeah, I know. Just this kinda talk makes me feel all weird and stuff. I don’t know.. Wanna come with me, Eds?”

Eddie blinks in surprise, and suppresses his smile back. “Sure,” he says, then shoves a handful of fries into his mouth, “okay, I’m comin’,” and they both wave to their friends, heading down towards the field. 

The five left exchange looks.

Bev tilts her head with confidence, folding her hands.“I don’t think getting them on this blind date with each other is going to be hard, after all.”

* * *

  
It is in fact, very hard. Especially when their phones are both left upstairs in Richie’s bedroom, and he and Eddie are downstairs in his living room, studying and working on homework together, completely unaware of their phones blowing up. They’re both late for their blind date, partially because they had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day, and partially because they’re already with each other.

Eddie groans. “Rich, what did you get for number seven? I’d try to work on it myself but looking at it is giving me a headache.”

“Copying off me now, huh?” Richie throws himself onto the couch from his place on the floor, resting his chin on Eddie’s knee, who’s sitting in a criss-crossed position. 

“Shush. Just lend me your school smarts for like, two seconds.” Eddie flicks his nose.

“Hey!” Richie laughs. “Know what? We’ve been working on this stupid assignment all day. Let’s just take a break.”

“This is worth like, over half of our grade. We have to turn it in on time or we’ll fail.”

“Eds, tell me where I said _‘hey, let’s abandon our work and not turn it in at all.’_ We can pick up on it later, okay? I know when you’re stressed, and you’re not gonna get much done in that mindset.”

“... Why do you know me?”

Richie snorts. “Because I do. Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Richie grabs the tv remote and flicks it on, changing the channel every two seconds. “God, nothing is on today,” every channel he seems to go to is all about love and cheesy romcoms. Neither of them seem to piece the puzzle together until one of the movies in question has Valentine’s Day in the title.

“Oh my god,” the two mutter in unison. 

“I totally forgot, to be honest,” Eddie says. “Actually, it makes me feel kinda bad.”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Well.. Ben and Bill tried to set me up on a blind date for tonight.. I didn’t exactly say no.. but I didn’t say yes either.. So I hope the poor guy isn’t waiting for me or anything. Kinda rather chill with you, here, anyway.”

The confession takes Richie by surprise. “Wait- _huh?_ Mike, Bev, and Stan _also_ tried to get me to go on a blind date tonight... You don’t think-?”

“- I _do_ think.. Wow, they’re such assholes.” Eddie looks over, finally making eye contact with Richie, trying to read his expression. “What are _your_ thoughts?”

Richie’s eyes flicker down to Eddie’s mouth, and immediately back up to meet his gaze, trying to be as discreet and nonchalant as he can about his actions, but Eddie caught it.

“Is that what you’re thinking about?” Eddie whispers, reaching up to ghost his fingertips across the back of Richie’s neck. 

“Maybe,” Richie admits. “But only if you think about that too.” His smile is cheeky, but it also falters in sudden nervousness. He cautiously leans into Eddie’s touch.

“All the time, actually. Since the eighth grade, at least.”

“I’ve been having a gay crisis over you since freshman year..” Richie chuckles. “See? What were our friends thinking? We got this. We didn’t need their help.”

“Of course not,” Eddie moves his fingers to hold Richie’s neck gently. “Remember what I said the first day we talked on the field? Some things just take some time.”

Richie grins wide. “Like, fate kinda shit?”

Eddie laughs and pulls Richie in by his grasp, into a hard-and-long-time-coming kiss. He remembers the first time he told his friends he wanted to kiss Richie and they told him to go for it. Apparently they were definitely onto something. He’s kind of mad at himself, actually, because if he would’ve listened, he could’ve had this for like, three years now. The way Richie’s mouth parts his open, tongue dipping inside, warm hand grabbing at the side of his hips, easing him down on his back, he could die right there. Except he wouldn’t because then he would have to miss out on all of the kisses they have to make up for. Richie’s hand moves from Eddie’s hips to his thigh, going to move it up and around his waist. 

Eddie turns his head to stop for a second, meeting Richie’s eyes again, “We have to send the group chat a picture of us and tell them we didn’t need their dumb plan.” 

Richie nods at Eddie’s suggestion, smirking, “That’s a great idea. Can we later though? I’m kinda preoccupied right now.” And they will. “Also, can we wait until midnight to make us official? Because I don’t want to be the cliche couple who gets together on fucking Valentine’s Day.”

Eddie laughs and agrees with a kiss. 

If they’re being honest, though, they’ve kinda always been a cliche.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave feedback and don't forget to share with your friends if you liked it :)
> 
> follow me on tumblr @richietoaster


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